The New Monasticism: The 12 Marks: Mark #4

Posted in: history,Spirituality by bill-o on June 24, 2009

“Lament for racial divisions within the church and our communities combined with the active pursuit of a just reconciliation.”

It started out so well. The apostle Philip, one of the original followers of Jesus, was traveling down a desert road when he came across an Ethiopian of the royal court. The man was reading the passage from the Hebrew Bible that spoke about a lamb being led to the slaughter. Puzzled over the meaning of this passage, he asked Philip to explain it to him. Philip then began to explain to the Ethiopian the good news about Jesus. Eagerly embracing the water of baptism, the Ethiopian came into the body of Christ that very day. This is story in the New Testament book of Acts is one where a white man, one of Jesus’s personal friends, invited a black man into the worldwide communion of Christ-followers at the specific direction of the Spirit of God.

Jesus is for all peoples, and he clearly told his original followers to go to all of the ethnos (people-groups) of the world. But something happened through the centuries since then: The racial and ethnic divisions of the world around crept into the community of Christ-followers.

Yet even with this, as if by some miracle, Jesus was embraced by some of the ones who oppressed by those who claimed the Name of Jesus. Perhaps one of the greatest witnesses for Christ is that he was embraced so eagerly by the slaves of the colonial period in the United States, in spite of the fact that he was also the savior of their masters. Then, they held faithfully to him during their many years of slavery and about 100 years of segregation and discrimination. Surely the goodness of Jesus is seen in his relationship with this often-oppressed minority group.

Yet racial divisions are not just those that are in the written law but, more importantly, in our hearts. When the world looks at the body of Christ, what does it see? For example, in the United States, the most racially segregated hour of the week is when churches meet on Sunday mornings. Yes, this is beginning to change, but we have a long way to go.

What words that stand out for me here:

1. Lament. This is where mark #4 starts, and it means a period of mournful reflection and careful consideration. Then, a period of tearful consideration gives way to the next stand-out word …

2. Active. Something that is active is not something that is on proverbial “back burner”. It something to be pursued now and continuously until the goal is fully achieved.

Can the body of Christ express true racial reconciliation? If the answer is no, then we are truly without hope on the earth. Yet in our hearts we know that the answer must be yes. With that, we must each take the courage to step towards this just end.